Van Rompuy to lay out crisis battle plan
Herman Van Rompuy has made his "grand entrance”, announces Le Soir. On 11 February the permanent president of the European Council is rounding up European leaders in Brussels for an informal summit with a view to reflating the European economy. He wants the EU to narrow its sights and adjust them to the current situation in each country. His battle plan also entails financial incentives for dutiful states that honour their obligations, rather than sanctions for wayward governments like Greece, which are hard to impose anyway. Finally, the ex-Belgian prime minister makes the case for an EU “economic government” to do a better job of coordinating national policies in the face of the recession. "This idea of an ‘economic government’ will please France, which has been fighting for this cause for years,” the Belgian daily adds. “However, other countries are still leery of the idea, especially Germany and Great Britain.”
In a time of crisis with high unemployment, young Lithuanians are following in the footsteps of their emigrant ancestors. Tens of thousands have left the country in search of a better life, mainly in the British Isles and Scandinavia. The weekly Veidas reports: 
The new Eurogroup meeting on February 9 is not enough to banish the spectre of a Greek bankruptcy. While Athens may largely be responsible for the crisis, the EU and its partners are not blameless themselves. La Stampa argues that their confused messages and the absence of any strategy have transformed a resolvable problem into an explosive chaos. 
Two camps, two theories, and two visions of France: 18 years after the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis, the precise role played by Paris is still the subject of heated debate, fueled by the findings of successive criminal investigations.